Everyone Needs a Break Now and Then
by Freya-Kendra
Summary: Even Blair needs to shut down an overloaded brain every now and then.


**Everyone Needs a Break Now & Then**

_by __Freya-Kendra_

Blair felt like a zombie, a completely brain-dead, empty shell that was functioning on instinct alone. He couldn't even remember driving back to campus. It was as though the car had taken him there on auto-pilot.

Shifting into park and shutting down the engine, he laid his head back and closed his eyes. It was a stall tactic more than anything else. He wasn't really tired. He just couldn't think. Back at the station, he'd barely made it through the paperwork Jim had left for him. The pages had started to lose all meaning, devolving into a senseless jumble of letters and numbers. Somehow his brain seemed to have gone numb.

_What brain?_ He wondered. He wasn't even sure he had one anymore.

When the image of a scarecrow started to dance across his thoughts to a tune from the Wizard of Oz, he knew he was in trouble. There were a million things that demanded his attention, some of which were already overdue. But how could he do anything about any of them when he didn't have any attention left to give?

It was no use. Sighing in resignation, he turned the ignition and backed out of the parking space. The essays sitting on his desk were going to have to sit there a little longer. What good would it do his students to have a brainless scarecrow grade their papers?

* * *

Jim turned his truck onto Marine Drive, his thoughts focused on the hoagie that was calling to him from Cappy Joe's, a waterfront deli he hadn't visited in way too long. Cappy Joe's had the best sandwiches this side of New York. At least, that's what the sign said. Actually, not being a New Yorker, Jim couldn't help but think Cappy Joe's had the best sandwiches anywhere. Period.

He could already smell the hot peppers when he pulled into the parking lot at the end of the boardwalk. But just as his stomach started rumbling in anticipation, a familiar Volvo caught his eye.

_What's Sandburg doing here?_ His partner had turned him down when he'd invited Blair to lunch. Though Jim had even offered to let Sandburg choose the restaurant, the kid had insisted he had to head back to Rainier. Why would he lie?

Curious, concerned and even a little angry, Jim parked the truck and set out to find Blair Sandburg. Cappy Joe's hoagies no longer mattered.

* * *

Blair sat on a bench at the far end of the boardwalk, staring out across the water. There was something soothing to the rhythmic sound of the waves as they crashed against the surrounding pylons. The high-pitched wail of seagulls added a natural, tuneless song to the mix until he found himself transfixed.

He was finally letting go. All of those tasks he'd shunned, all of those things he was supposed to do ... he felt it all drifting out to sea. Nothing mattered but this. This moment. This place.

"Sandburg?"

The sound of his name came from everywhere and nowhere, mingled with the pounding waves, muted by the wailing seagulls.

"Sandburg?"

And suddenly there was someone beside him.

Blair felt his muscles twitch, as though he'd fallen from a great height to land gently back on the bench. A new image took form in front of him obscuring his view of the water, and he found himself meeting Jim Ellison's inquisitive gaze.

With a quick shake of his head to stave off the daze he'd succumbed to, Blair cleared his throat. "Jim? Hey. Sorry, man. I was just...." He had no word to describe it.

"Thinking?"

Blair laughed tiredly. "Not by a long shot. More like spacing out."

"What's wrong, Sandburg? You said you had a lot of work to do back at Rainier."

He sighed. "Nothing's wrong. Not really. I just ... couldn't."

"Couldn't? Couldn't what?"

"I couldn't do it, Jim. None of it. It was like.... I don't know. Information overload or something. I just couldn't think anymore."

"Information overload? _You_?" Though he didn't actually smile, Jim's eyes sparkled with a familiar, warm mischief.

Rolling his own eyes, Blair chuckled at the irony. "Yeah. Can you believe it?"

"Stop the presses." Then Jim really did smile. "Better not tell Simon. I don't know if he could take the shock."

"Funny, Jim. Very funny."

"Listen, Einstein...."

"More like Scarecrow today."

"Scarecrow?" Jim said it in a matter-of-fact sort of way, but Blair saw more than a little confusion in the man's eyes.

"You know. _If I only had a brain_."

Confusion turned to skepticism. "Okay. Scarecrow," Jim offered in appeasement. "How `bout you and I go grab a couple of hoagies and head up to the campgrounds. We'd be there in plenty of time to get in a good evening of fishing."

"Uh, Jim? Don't you have a job to do?"

"You do too, right?"

*_Touche_.* "But doesn't Simon expect you back at the station this afternoon?"

Jim shrugged. "It's been a quiet day. And if we invite Simon along, he'll have nothing to complain about."

"You're serious? You want to just pack it in and ... and play hookie?"

"Why not? You did. Heck, we all need a break now and then."

Blair's smile widened. "Yeah. Yeah, we do."

"It's settled then." Jim stood up and turned his attention toward Cappy Joe's. "Now let's get those hoagies."

A moment later, Blair was walking beside his friend toward a dingy little greasy spoon that did nothing to boost his appetite, but everything to boost his spirits. "Hey, Jim?" He said after a while.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks"

Jim just patted his shoulder as he began to whistle a familiar tune from the Wizard of Oz.

_*** end ***_


End file.
